Because Life Doesn't Always Have a Plot Line
by rurousha
Summary: Two strangers meet in a restaurant, speaking of nothing worthwhile to the other.


Must have read up to volume 28 of the manga to be able follow what's going on.

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**Because Life Doesn't Always Have a Plot Line**

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When bitterness, anger, and hurt are gone, what's left behind? All Yukishiro Enishi has left is a failed vendetta that he's lost the motive to continue. He doesn't hate anymore.

He's just tired most of the time.

Like today. He kneels alone in a booth nestled in the back corner of a restaurant whose name he didn't bother to catch on his way in, slowly picking at his bowl of rice with a pair of chopsticks. That and the cup of tea to his right are all he ordered. Abandoning his company and running from the police has left the former mafia boss with virtually no money for food and shelter beyond what he can scrape up from time to time.

He doesn't really mind, though. He's not particularly hungry these days either.

He takes a sip of his tea, only half conscious of the world around him. As he's setting the cup back down, though, the dull _clink _of ceramic on wood pulls him out of his private contemplations.

The first thing Enishi sees when he looks over is a bowl of ramen with the liquid contents still rippling a little from being set on the table. The second is a body, or rather, the clothes that the body is wearing: a boy's maroon gi over a plain white shirt and black hakama pants. This rules out it being his waitress, so Enishi looks up to this newcomer's face and is mildly surprised to find that it is actually a girl. She looks to be in her late teens or early twenties, he guesses. Her plain brown hair is cropped short everywhere but at the bangs, which hang down in two longer, paler spikes to frame either side of her face. Two stern blue eyes look back at Enishi, and he gets a sense of pity from them. They judge him so quickly, though it isn't a harsh judgment.

The girl gestures slightly towards the bowl from where she's leaning a shoulder on the divider between booths. "I've found that soup can cure almost anything from the flu to depression," she says. "Although…" She quirks an eyebrow up after making a more thorough examination of the man kneeling in front of her. "It looks like your angst may just be a little too deep for even soup to melt."

With that, she pushes herself off the divider and walks back to her seat.

* * *

It takes a full three minutes for Enishi to really grasp what just happened, and by that time he's already drained a third of the bowl. Maybe that's why he's so surprised to find himself four booths down, standing over her table, with his remaining soup and chopsticks in hand and what's left of his money abandoned on the table he just left. 

The girl doesn't look up when his tall shadow falls over her own bowl of soup – chicken and vegetable. Instead, she just sighs and says, "That was an attempt at a good deed, not an invitation."

"Noted…" He finds that a piece of rice has gotten lodged in the back of his throat, so he clears it before continuing. "May I join you anyway?"

She finally looks up at him. Even towering over her, he looks so… defeated, what with his hunched shoulders, ratted clothing, and lowered head. His pale, sunken eyes even seem somehow _vulnerable_, as if they're unaccustomed to seeing or being seen in the daylight.

She shrugs. "Sure."

So he does. He kneels across from her and sets his bowl in front of him. Then he lightly taps the side of the porcelain with his chopsticks to bring her attention to it. "Thank you for this, by the way."

"… You're welcome."

Several moments go by, and neither make an effort to make conversation. Talking would probably be even more awkward than the silence right now. Even the few other customers in the restaurant fail to fill the quiet with much more than the occasional mutter to a waitress or dining companion. It's understandable, maybe, seeing as how it's still rather early in the evening for dinner, and people have yet to swarm to the restaurants.

The silence hangs between them until the teenager happens upon a realization while sifting around in her own mind. "You're a swordsman?"

Enishi looks back up at her in suspicion. He's felt no swordsman spirit about this girl, yet she picked up on his fairly quickly. She could be hiding something…

Or she could have just noticed his perfectly trained build, the calluses on his hands, and the numerous scars on his body and taken a lucky guess. He may very well just be a paranoid moron.

Then again, it doesn't really matter one way or another. He decides to relax the muscles that are scrunching up between his eyes and just answer the question.

"I used to be. I haven't held a sword in a while, though."

"So what're you doing around here?" She nods down the aisle to indicate the waitress telling a cook the next order. "The workers look at you the same way they do me; it looks like you're not a regular."

What's he doing here, she asks? He wishes he knew…

"I guess I'm on a journey."

"Looking for something?"

He nods. "An answer, it seems. A solution to existing in a world where love and hate are bred so closely together but one that still expects us to know the difference between right and wrong." He's started picking at his food again, temporarily forgetting the girl's existence during his musings.

"You're strange."

Again, _temporarily_.

"I had you pinned as the defensive, guarded type, but you admitted that easily enough." She grins self-depreciatively. "Goes to show just how bad my instincts are, I guess."

"You knew I was a swordsman without much to go on," Enishi points out.

"Trust me, _that _wasn't instinct," she says back, waving her chopsticks around to emphasize 'that'. "That was just observation and a tiny hint of experience."

"You're a swordsman, then?" he asks even though it still makes no sense to him.

"Not really," she replies. "What little training I've had wasn't with samurai swords, at least. I'd like change that, though."

"Is that what you're doing in Tokyo?" He shoves a mouthful of noodles in, only half-interested in the answer.

The girl, however, smirks at finding an opportunity to switch roles, which is always fun. "Oh, I'm on a journey, to learn and to grow. To wonder when love and hate will play in since I like to think I'm doing alright in the right-wrong fight."

Enishi smiles back, a genuine smile, amused with the pointless banter. In their own ways, both parties are enjoying the talk. It's not so much because of what they're saying, though. It's just that they are talking. Two strangers spilling their guts without actually giving the other any legitimate information about each other.

Enishi sticks a vegetable in his mouth without even paying enough attention to tell what it is. Then he realizes that it's the last one. He looks down at his bowl to find that at some point in the conversation he'd finished eating. All that remains is a small pool of broth at the bottom.

Figuring that it's likely to be his last decent meal for a while, he drains the last of it. He looks across the table to find the girl similarly finished.

Which brings a question to mind. "If my soup was to cure 'angst', what was your ailment?"

She half smiles, half chuckles as she pulls enough coins out of her sleeves to pay for both their bowls and sets it on the table. She looks into his tired eyes and simply states, "Hunger."

Then she slaps her legs and stands. Enishi follows suit, first rocking forward, then back onto the balls of his feet. The first thing he notes upon standing is that he's well near a half meter taller than her. Oddly enough, the striking height difference fails to make her look any younger.

They move to the aisle, and the girl pulls a pack onto one shoulder. Her clothes are cheap and frayed on the bottom hems, though they're kept surprisingly clean. Enishi, after wandering around Japan and China for quite some time as a child, can spot a nomad fairly easily, so he takes a guess that she doesn't have a place to stay. "Do you know where you're staying the night?"

"Not yet, but I'm sure there's a few inns nearby."

"I wouldn't bother. They're rather overpriced around here. There's one place, though, about twenty minutes away that's decent but reasonably priced. I could show you."

She looks almost straight up at him. "Well, I don't think you're going to attack me, and having you around would certainly discourage anyone else from doing so. Why not?"

So they both head to the door, though Enishi can't help but point out a flaw in this stranger's logic. "You don't think? What of your poor instincts?"

She shrugs. "I can usually take care of myself when I'm wrong."

He decides not to ask about that. He doubts she'd tell anyway.

* * *

The sun's gone down early on account of the short days, and it's only after a few minutes of walking side by side down the streets that it starts to rain. Neither of the pair comments or complains. They don't even seem to notice the drizzle while other pedestrians take shelter under awnings and umbrellas. In fact, they only once speak to each other throughout the entire trip. 

"Why do you wear boy's clothes?"

"It's comfortable, and people bother me less."

"Hm."

* * *

One closing street vender notes how out of place they look as they pass by his counter. A white-haired man escorting a girl that barely comes up to his chest down an almost-deserted Tokyo road, neither caring that the rain is soaking them both. Odd indeed.

* * *

"Here." Enishi stops under the covering of the inn's entrance. The girl had been walking at his right, so he doesn't need to move out of her way for her to get to the doorway. 

"Thank you." Without even looking back, she steps in. Thinking twice, she almost immediately turns around, back to her dining companion.

"I was just about to say that we still don't know each other's names. But…" she tilts her head to one side, "I think I'm just fine not knowing."

He nods lightly. "If you're really interested in learning to use a sword, I recommend the Kamiya dojo."

"Thanks." She bows politely. "Bye."

He nods a farewell and walks off. She turns inside and asks for a room.

Sometimes, in one's life, you meet a person that changes your life forever, be it family, friend, or lover. You end up staying with that person for the rest of your days.

Sometimes, in one's life, you meet a person that you have to leave, be it family, friend, or lover. And it's in the reunion that you realize you don't want to ever leave them again.

And sometimes, in one's life, you meet a person that you never meet again. You don't even know them long enough for them to become family, friend, or lover.

So two strangers separate and head onward to their respective journeys.

Because sometimes life is just an experience, not a story.

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_Disclaimer_: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. I can barely say I own this character because, even though she is an original character of my own, she's purposefully written in this story to be able to come off as just anyone. Just a random person in a restaurant. 

This was inspired after seeing some of the images of Enishi being under arrest and sitting with the Old Man in the manga. It's especially what I had in mind when I described what he looked like when he first arrived at the young woman's table. I'll post those pictures in my Scraps on DeviantArt if you want to see what I'm talking about.


End file.
